To the Doctor, a sister
by Katrina Ravensden
Summary: After getting dragged off course by the Tardis, the Doctor finds out he has a long lost sister... DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the Doctor Who characters. All rights go to the BBC
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – The Doctor Visits**

"Sophie, time to get ready for bed darling"

"One minute mum"

As I finished colouring in the last bit of my tenth 'Doctor' comic strip, I found my mind wandering to all my made up adventures with the Doctor and wishing they would come true. My mum tells me that ever since I turned five I have been fixated on my Doctor. I made him up and created his life through drawing after drawing. I have a whole draw full of them and how the Doctor goes travelling in his spaceship called the Tardis. I made up his life and how he would travel through time and space and stopping alien plots. I made up his companions that he took on travels with him and in one or two I put myself in their place and would travel with the Doctor to the end of the Universe and stop aliens from taking over the earth.

"Sophie, I mean it. Bed, now!"

"Ok mum I'm finished"

I put my pencils away and crawled into bed, hoping to have a dream where I would travel with the Doctor again. However, my dream is interrupted at one o'clock in the morning by a faint whooshing sound that gradually gets louder. My hair is being blown about like it does in the wind but my window is closed. There's a light and the faded shape of the Tardis comes slowly into focus and before I know it, the Doctor himself along with Rose Tyler are standing in my room looking very confused.

My throat is so dry I can barely get out a hello. The Doctor is muttering about the Tardis keeping on jumping time tracks. Rose on the other hand has noticed my drawing and is just about to pick it up.

"No, don't touch that!"

I grab the picture and stuff it in my drawer with the others. Rose looks a bit taken aback by my sudden outburst but soon goes back to the Doctor's side. The Doctor has finished examining my room and is now looking at me like I'm an alien.

"Hello. I'm the Doctor and this is Rose and who are you may I ask?"

"Sophie"

"Well nice to meet you Sophie. How old are you?"

"Seventeen. I know right, seventeen and still living with my mum."

The Doctor smiles and looks at Rose. "Oh, nothing wrong with that"

His gaze trails to my draw full of Doctor drawings and in no time he's opened it and is examining them with interest and shock.

"Sophie, did you draw these?"

"Yes. I've been drawing them since I was five"

He spins round on the heels of his converses and looks at me.

"How?"

Rose slaps him on the arm.

"What do you mean how? With pencils of course"

The Doctor shook his head.

"No I mean, we've never ever come here before and I have never ever seen her before in my life so how could she possibly know about me, about you and Mickey, Sarah Jane Smith and K-9, and about the Daleks, the Cybermen, Slitheen, Ood, you name it and I bet you it's in one of these drawings"

Rose suddenly catches on and backs away from the draw as if it had fangs.

"I don't understand. I made you up in my mind when I was five years old. All those drawings, those adventures, those monsters and your companions, they're all my imagination and have been for twelve years"

The Doctor paces back and forth before snapping his fingers and taking out his sonic screwdriver. He presses a button and a bright blue light bathes my face. After about a minute of this, the Doctor examines the screwdriver and then backs away from my bed.

"What? What is it Doctor?"

I'm starting to get worried. I should be ecstatic but I'm not. The Doctor frowns and then holds my head.

"Sophie, this won't hurt a bit, just hold still"

I do as he says and he looks me in the eye before rushing back into the Tardis and coming out with a bunch of papers. He looks through the quickly before throwing them back into the Tardis and yelling out in frustration.

"Doctor what's wrong?"

Rose takes him by the arm and forces him to stop pacing the room. I get off my bed and do the only thing I know that gets me noticed. I walk over to the Doctor and step on his foot, not so hard that it hurts but hard enough for him to notice and look at me.

"What was that for?"

I smile a little at his disgruntled expression – he looks like a kid who accidently broke something.

"To get you to stop and look at me so you can answer my question. What is it that is wrong?"

The Doctor makes me sit down before explaining.

"According to my records, I'm not just your imagination; you know everything about me and my life. Now considering I'm 907 and you're only 17, this is not possible but I'm just going to run a little test"

I sat up properly and readied myself.

"The name of the planet of the Slitheens"

"Raxocoricofallapatorius"

"My race and their home planet"

"Time Lord and Galifrey"

"What does Tardis stand for?"

"Time and Relative Dimension in Space"

The Doctor looks relatively shocked but none the less he isn't fazed and he asks one more question. One more completely random and absurd question.

"What happened to my right hand on Christmas Day two years ago?"

I'm so taken aback by this question that for a moment I'm not sure I can answer it. But I do.

"It was cut off in battle by the Sycorax leader and because you were still in the first fifteen hours of your regeneration cycle you had enough energy to grow another one and it became a fighting hand"


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 – The Doctor realises.**

"Oh my god. Doctor, how does she know this?"

"I don't know Rose"

"That was the first story I ever made up. I drew the pictures and told my mum the story so she wrote it down for me. I don't know how I know, I didn't even imagine this would come true, I wished it but never thought it would and I swear to you Doctor, I made it all up"

The Doctor suddenly takes on a look that to me is a mixture of confusion, thought and realisation. He gets up and goes into the Tardis. He's in there for a while before he comes out with what looks like a metal fountain pen. He grabs my right hand and pricks my finger. The metal fountain pen turns out to be some sort of DNA tester and it starts to bleep and tiny lights go off.

"No, that's not possible"

Rose takes the Doctor's arm and looks at the DNA tester.

"What's not possible Doctor?"

He looks at me before explaining.

"Sophie here is somehow part Time Lord and there are traces of excess cellular energy that matches DNA patterns to mine. She is, in some sort of technical effect, my sister. The question is, how did this happen? Sophie?"

"Two years ago, when your, um, hand fell to earth, it fell in a bin around the corner from here. The same bin I was hiding behind because I was scared. Scared because the first story I ever made up came true – great big alien space ship in the sky, the Tardis standing on a street corner and people of the blood group A+ standing on the edge of every high building they could find because they were under the influence of blood control. Anyway, your hand fell into this bin and this yellow stuff came from it and I accidently breathed it in because I had stood up when I heard a noise and this yellow stuff hit me in the face"

The Doctor has gone so pale I think he might faint. Rose had let out a small scream when I mentioned the blood control but the Doctor had just nodded along as I told the story.

"Well, the sort of bad news is, I can't reverse what's been done. That yellow stuff was, as I said, excess cellular energy from my regeneration cycle and when you breathed it in, it changed your DNA and I can't change it back. Sorry"

He and Rose started to go back to the Tardis when I find the courage to ask the one thing I've been dreaming about for twelve years.

"Doctor..."

He poked his head out from the Tardis and looks at me expectantly. My nerve bottles and I go shy. I can't do it.

"Never mind, I was just going to ask, if I could..."

I can't find the right words to say. The Doctor looks at me and then smiles. He holds out his hand and winks.

"Come on, what kind of a brother would I be if I left my sister behind?"

A huge smile creeps onto my face and I quickly rummage around in my wardrobe before pulling out a big rucksack and grabbing onto his hand.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Destiny nowhere.**

No sooner had we taken off, the Tardis had given a huge lurch and sent us all flying. I had crashed against a pillar whereas Rose had had the sense to sit down on the seats and strap herself in. I managed to scramble to my feet and strap myself in just as the Tardis gave another lurch. Despite all the chaos, the Doctor is still on his feet and is skipping around the console, pulling levers and flicking switches in a desperate attempt to control the Tardis.

When the turbulence had begun, numerous alarm bells had sounded but now there was only silence apart from the strained groans on the engines filling the air. Suddenly, the lights went out, plunging the three of us into darkness for a second before the emergency lights came on, making the Tardis look like a spooky fire-lit cavern.

"Doctor, what's happening?" Rose asks, trying not to sound scared or worried. I wonder if she is doing this for my sake but I soon forget about this when I notice how concerned the Doctor seems.

"I wish I knew," the Doctor tells her, flashing both of us a quick reassuring grin, "but I'm sure it's nothing to worry about"

I try to remember if I had created this story yet but I'm distracted yet again by the sound of the engines stopping completely, leaving a deep and frightening silence.

"Oh dear," mutters the Doctor, "I may have been wrong about not worrying"

Desperately, he starts pulling at a series of levers and begins pumping what appears to be a bicycle pump that's connected to the Tardis by a long rubber tube. In all the excitement, I had completely forgotten the fact that I was in my pyjamas and quietly sneak off to get changed. A few minutes later, I come back dressed in dark green cargo trousers, brown combat boots that came to my knees and a black t-shirt. I debated on a jumper and settled with a thin black jacket. Still nothing had happened and the Doctor was getting very frustrated.

"What's happening?" asks Rose, nervously.

"Something is draining our power. Something on the nearest planet" answers the Doctor. He frowns at the tiny television screen on the console which won't pick up any signal.

"How is that possible?" I ask. I walk up to his side and look at the screen which shows nothing but black.

"I don't know," confesses the Doctor, "But we will have to make an emergency rematerialisation and then-"

"-find the source of the problem"

I finish his sentence and he looks at me with satisfaction.

"Yes, well done Sophie"

The Doctor turns his attention back to the controls; the red emergency lights casting shadows across the entire control room making it feel like a haunted house. Suddenly, sparks shoot out from the console followed by a loud bang. Rose screams and me and the Doctor both jump back.

"We're here" announces the Doctor after a moment of total silence. "Shall we find out where here is then?"

I try to open the doors and find them stuck. The Doctor searches about in a shoe box and pulls out a crow bar. He wedges in-between the two doors and after a while, the doors are open. However, the only thing we discover about the place is that it's dark. Very dark.

"Wait here"

The Doctor goes back into the Tardis and using his sonic screwdriver as a torch, he locates the emergency supplies cupboard and takes out three compact torches. He hands one to Rose and then one to me. I'm not quite sure what to do with it until I see the Doctor winding his up. I proceed to do the same and after five minutes of winding a bright light shines out the end.

"They're hand powered so with a bit of luck the energy level will be low enough not to attract the attention of whatever it is that stole our power"

"Where are we?" asks Rose.

The Doctor shines his torch into the darkness. I can just make out a bridge leading to a tunnel that splits in two directions.

"In a spaceship, but it's on the surface of the planet we saw, not in space"

With our torches on full power, the three of us step cautiously out of the Tardis. We cross the bridge and enter a room at the end of one of the tunnels. We shine our torches around the room. It is oval shaped with a number of workstations around the edge. The Doctor starts to sniff the air with a curious expression on his face.

"That smell, I'm sure I should know it"

He shakes his head and begins to examine the Captain's Chair. I walk over to one of the workstations and look in awe at all the strange dials, buttons and levers. Rose is looking at another workstation when the Doctor announces something.

"This is a Draconian Ship, so this must be... of course the 'Regal Prince'!"

Rose laughs.

"Isn't that a curry house in Goodge Street?" she asks, giving me a cheeky wink that makes me laugh.

"Yes it is," the Doctor nods, bringing a stop to Rose's cheekiness, "but it's also the name of a Draconian vessel that went missing in mysterious circumstances like the 'Marie Celeste' or 'Amelia Earhart...'

I smile at his enthusiasm and jump up from the seat I've been sitting in.

"Well, I think we should explore the ship a little more, what do you think _brother_?"

I give him a quick smile before rushing down one of the tunnels, my ponytail bouncing as I go.

"Sophie, come back!"

I hear the Doctor yelling after me and then the sound of footsteps coming down the tunnel. I've found my way back into the dark interior of the ship. I'm searching about when I feel the Doctor's hand on my arm, pulling me round to face him.

"We don't know what's on this ship so _please_ be more careful next time"

I nod and continue my search. I hear Rose and the Doctor talking but I don't listen.

"She's more like you than you think"

"Not really, what happened to her was a complete accident. What she is is a bundle of energy that, needs ... watching. Where'd she go? Sophie? Great, I was going to suggest trying to find an airlock. We need to get out of here because we won't find whatever it is that caused us to lose our power in here. Sophie!"

"Round here!"

The Doctor and Rose turn the corner to find the airlock staring them in the face. The Doctor shines the torch at his face and beams.

"Oh good work Sophie!"

The doors are open so we carefully venture inside and are met with an incredible sight.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: The Spaceship Graveyard.**

We step out of the airlock properly and find ourselves on some sort of balcony with steps leading down to a vast plain that stretches out into the distance. The ground itself was covered with spaceships and rockets of all sizes, some as small as a family car and some as large as a twenty storey tower block. For a moment I wonder if this is some sort of airport for spaceships but I then realise that some of the ships have been damaged and show signs of landing badly – some are partly buried in the ground and others have had sections broken off and large dents in the sides.

"Well, that's what I'd call a Spaceship Graveyard!" says the Doctor.

"More like a junkyard! What happened here then?" mutters Rose.

"At a guess," begins the Doctor, "I'd say the power drain that affected the Tardis has been operating for quite a long time"

"What happened to the crew?" I ask. The Doctor and Rose look at me, confused.

"Surely there must have been some survivors from all these crashes?"

We all listen carefully but there is only silence apart from the sound of us breathing and the occasional creak of a distant wreck in the light breeze. Suddenly, something noisily crashes to the ground close by. I whip my head round and look back through the airlock, expecting to see a survivor but am met with nothing except the Doctor poking his head through the door.

"What was that?" Rose asks.

"Either this wreck is still settling or we're not alone"

With that, the Doctor disappears around the corner. Rose begins to follow him and waves me on.

"Come on, we don't want to lose him, do we?"

I follow her around the corner and am met with quite a different situation. An alien creature was holding Rose and the Doctor in the air by their heads. It was a humanoid with blue skin, three legs and four arms.

"Let them go!" I scream.

I start searching around for a weapon and spot a cricket ball-sized rock and pick it up. I'm just about to throw it at the alien's head when the Doctor lifts an arm.

"Don't throw it Sophie!"

The alien has let the Doctor and Rose go. I drop the rock and run to their side. They appear unharmed apart from a sticky residue left in their hair. Rose runs her hand through it and pulls a face.

"Ugh, what did you do?!"

"I can now speak your language. I'm sorry if my physical contact caused any discomfort. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kudir and I am from a race of merchant travellers from the planet Kropil. Now, by the protocols of the Imperial Code, I demand that you release my ship!"

The alien seemed quite angry and I'm just about to pick up the rock again when the Doctor grabs my arm and shoves me behind him. His hands fly up.

"We've only just arrived here ourselves. We don't know what attacked your ship but it wasn't us!"

Kudir seems to calm down and points his hand down the tunnel.

"I did find something that may explain it. If you would care to follow me, I will show you"

The Doctor is hesitant at first but he eventually follows Kudir. He still has hold of my arm so I'm forced to follow him and Rose comes too, not wanting to be left on her own. Kudir leads us back to the plain and through the hulks towards an area relatively free of wreckage. He points to a low circular structure that is set into the ground. We jump through and find ourselves in another tunnel.

"The entrance is through here"

Kudir points to a doorways that leads into another building. Inside is a spiral staircase that leads deep into the planet. We begin to descend and the Doctor has to let go of me. I try to keep track of the number of steps but I lose count in the five hundreds.

"How far are we going down?" I ask as my legs start to ache.

"I think we've had our exercise for the day" Rose agrees.

"We're nearly there" announces the Doctor. The staircase finished in an anti-chamber that led into some kind of underground building. As I reached the last step, my foot got caught on a rock and sent me flying straight into the Doctor's arms.

"Whoa, careful there!"

I laugh but his hand landed on my chest when I tripped and his look becomes serious when he moves it over my heart. I stop laughing immediately.

"What's wrong?"

He shakes his head.

"Nothing. Come on"

We followed Kudir down a short corridor and into a large hall full of strange machinery and computers. There were also several glass columns that seemed to be full of crackling blue electric fire. I looked at the Doctor who was very excited.

"Now, this looks like it means business, doesn't it!" he comments as he rushes around the hall taking in all the various details of the alien machine.

"Sophie, Rose, over here!"

The Doctor summons us to a central console.

"This is the main user interface. Let's see if we can get any sense out of it"

The Doctor points the sonic screwdriver at the screen and clicks the button. After about a minute a computer generated animated face appears on a screen above us.

"Defence Status Alpha," it announces in an electronic voice, "Containment is standard, energy levels at 70 per cent"

"Containment of what?" I ask. I catch the Doctor smiling at me.

"Smart thinking Sophie. See Rose, I told you she was smart, like her brother" he added with a cheeky wink.

The computer face spoke again.

"Containment of the Breach, of course"

The Doctor looks up at the screen.

"May we see the Breach?" asks the Doctor. The screen changes to show a picture of local space.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5: The dilemma.**

On the screen is a space ship. It looks very old and the hull is pitted with dents caused by passing space debris. It also seemed to be glowing with red glitter.

"What's wrong with it?" Rose and I say at the same time.

"It's had an accident – a bad one. It looks like it has suffered some kind of complete engine failure at a very bad time – in the instant of moving from hyperspace back into real space time"

"So it's stuck in some in, what, some sort of inter-dimensional doorway?" asks Rose.

"Exactly," the Doctor nods, "but the problem with a hyperspace drive is that it makes its own doorway... and if that doorway isn't shut the hole in space-time becomes very unstable"

Suddenly, Kudir speaks up, making us jump. We had completely forgotten about him.

"That may be but we have to switch this machine off"

We all turn to look at him. I make a move but the Doctor grabs my hand.

"Weren't you listening? If we turn off this machine it will be a disaster!" I yell, outraged at his suggestion.

"I agree with her Kudir. We have to find another way" The Doctor insists.

Kudir suddenly stands in his way and pulls out a weapon. I stand in front of the Doctor to protect him.

"I'm sorry but it is imperative that I get home. My ship is carrying emergency medical supplies. There is a plague ravishing my home planet and the cargo in my ship could save millions of lives, but time is of the essence"

"Wait, you have enough medicine in your ship to save that many people?" asks Rose.

Kudir nods.

"A tiny dose of the medicine is all that is needed for each person. If they get the treatment in the first three days of illness"

"Well, we can help you, yeah," Rose promises Kudir. She looks expectantly at the Doctor. "We can, can't we?"

The Doctor hesitates and scratches the back of his ear. I too am now looking at him like he should automatically have an answer.

"Well, in theory, yes, of course. The Tardis can get that medicine to where it's needed in next to no time..."

"You see, I told you!" Rose tells Kudir enthusiastically.

"... but that does require the Tardis to be functioning ... and for this machine to be turned off" the Doctor says, sounding rather defeated.

Kudir nods his head in agreement. "Exactly what I have just said"

I walk up to the Doctor and look him in the eye. I take a deep breath and say in a quiet and the calmest voice I can manage,

"Are you seriously just going to shut it down?"

He flashes me a quick grin.

"Of course, but not before I've solved the problem here!"

We turn back to the screen where the spaceship is still stuck – halfway between hyperspace and normal space. I frown at the screen.

"What would happen," I ask in a curious voice, "if the spaceship completed its move?"

The Doctor suddenly spins around on his heels, picks me up and spins me round.

"Of course! Sophie you genius, genius girl!"

I scream in surprise as he drops me back on the ground and rushes back to the console.

"But you didn't answer my question"

He flashes me a quick grin.

"What happens is what always happens when a ship jumps into hyperspace – the hole in space-time seals itself up ... which is just what we want to happen"

The Doctor finishes making some adjustments to the controls with the sonic screwdriver and then turns to face us with a serious look on his face.

"Right then, this is going to be tricky. I need to get across to that spaceship and fix the problem at the source but to do that I need the Tardis to work properly _but_ in order for that to happen..."

"The machine has to be turned off" Rose finishes for him.

I look at the Doctor.

"But that's just what we don't want to do" I point out.

The Doctor nods.

"So, here's the plan. We're going to shut off the machine for exactly thirty seconds which should give me enough time to do my AA man routine. Now, I reckon it should take me about half an hour to get back to the Tardis so use Rose's watch and time me. On that mark, pull this lever to zero and count thirty seconds and then return the lever to its original position. Got that?"

I nod and with that he sets off. The half an hour passes surprisingly quickly and on Rose's signal I turn off the machine. Anxiously, we watch the screen but nothing seems to be happening.

"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty. Time's up" announces Rose.

"But nothing's happening. Maybe he needs more time" I reply.

Rose looks at me.

"Sophie, we promised not to leave it for more than thirty seconds. You as his sister should know that the Doctor can do it no matter how difficult things are"

I nod and push the lever back to its original position and the machinery that surrounds us hums back into life. Suddenly, the spaceship on the screen disappears. Rose cheers and gives me a high five.

"So what happens now? The Doctor didn't go into much detail about that"

Rose grins. "He rarely does"

We sit on the floor and wait for the Doctor to return when Rose's phone suddenly rings. She picks it up and after a brief conversation hangs up.

"That was the Doctor. He says we can shut this machine down for good now and then we're to go back to the Tardis"

I pull the lever down to zero and me and Rose set off on the long journey back to the Tardis. Rose is a much faster walker than me and soon she's quite a way ahead. I climb through the hole in the ground back out onto the plain to see Rose halfway across it. I start to follow when someone grabs me from behind and pulls me back down the hole. I scream for Rose and I think I hear her say something about the Doctor but I'm more preoccupied in struggling to get free.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Held Hostage.**

I'm forced into a room and tied to a pole in the corner. I turn my head to see my assailant is Kudir and I realise he must have slipped away while me and Rose were shutting down the machines. I've now got a throbbing sensation in my head where I was roughly shoved down the hole but I find I can talk without causing too much pain.

"What do you want?"

Kudir smirks at me.

"Thought I might need a hostage and you were the perfect fit. Oh how the Doctor will come running to save his little sister"

He pulls out an energy weapon from his coat and presses it against my temple, causing the throbbing to increase. I wince in pain and Kudir lets out a cold laugh.

"No energy draining machine anymore so this is fully functioning"

"You'll never get away with this Kudir. The Doctor will stop you!"

Kudir laughs again but it's not cold or cruel this time. He's almost... amused.

"Yes, they all say that. But this time, the Doctor won't be able to save you. He's too far away to hear your screams and by the time he gets here, you'll be dead and I'll be gone"

I close my eyes and rest my head against the pole.

"They all say that" says a familiar voice. I open my eyes to see the Doctor pointing his sonic screwdriver at Kudir's weapon, anger in his eyes, Rose standing behind him. Kudir laughs, grabs my shoulder and forces me forward. I have to hang my head because I'm in so much pain but I can feel Kudir's weapon pressed harshly against my head.

"Let her go Kudir"

"I don't think so Doctor. You see while she's here, I'm safe because I know you wouldn't, not when your own sister is at risk. Sophie knows it too, don't you Sophie?"

I don't answer because the pain in my head is so unbearable I'm close to fainting. I raise my head to see the Doctor looking very angry and the hand that grips his screwdriver is shaking wildly, as if he really is thinking about killing Kudir.

"Doctor..." I groan.

Kudir presses the weapon harder against my temple making me yelp in pain. Suddenly, I hear a shot ring out and Kudir cries out with frustration and pain. He grabs an actual gun from a table in the room and pulls the trigger. I feel the bullet hit me in the side and I lean over as pain shoots through my body. I see Kudir being arrested by alien authorities and the Doctor rushing over to me.

He uses the sonic screwdriver to cut the ropes and he takes me in his arms. Rose is pressing a wad of tissues against the wound in my stomach.

"Sophie, can you hear me?"

I nod. I feel something dripping on my cheek and realise he's crying.

"Please, you can't leave me. I've only just found you and we've got things to do. Places to travel to and alien plots to foil"

My voice comes out a croak when I speak.

"That sounds nice"

"Come on, you're a Time Lord and my sister. You can pull through and then it'll be me, you and Rose going where ever we want to"

I shakily reach up a hand to smooth his coat and he holds on to it for dear life. He's shaking with sorrow and I almost die of heart ache never mind blood loss. He rests his forehead against mine and his sobs become harsher.

"We could see anything?" I whisper.

"Yes, anything, just don't go, not now. Please"

I smile weakly and shut my eyes. He picks me up and carries me all the way back to the Tardis. He lies me down on the floor and begins searching through a medical kit when Rose gasps and calls the Doctor. All I'm aware of is a warm feeling slowly spreading through my body. Suddenly, I open my eyes and the Doctor is sitting next to me. I gingerly feel for the bullet wound by come across nothing. I slowly sit up and the Doctor gives me a huge hug.

"What happened to me?"

The Doctor beams at me.

"You regenerated"

"But, I thought I was only part Time Lord"

The Doctor grins again. "You are but you can still regenerate. Not fully because you haven't changed appearance but it appears your body heals itself if you've got a serious wound"

I smile and the Doctor helps me up. I give him a massive hug and he spins me around. I scream in surprise and start laughing.

"Wait, what happened back there? I don't remember most of it"

I lean against the console of the Tardis and look at the Doctor.

"Well, Rose came rushing in saying Kudir had taken you and as we were running back we ran into a group of alien soldiers who were looking for Kudir. Turns out he'd gone AWOL from the Army and he was wanted for questioning. Anyway, we explained he'd taken you and when we found you, you were in a pretty bad state. After a bit, one of the alien soldiers behind us shot at Kudir's hand to make him drop his weapon so he grabbed an ordinary gun from a table and shot you. He was arrested."

I nodded. "So what about the medicine?"

The Doctor shakes his head.

"There was no medicine or any plague. The real cargo was a rare spice called Potsis, used in the finest cuisine. I thought I recognised the smell of it when we first arrived. Got a sensitive nose I have"

I laugh and then remember something.

"What about earlier? When you felt my chest?"

The Doctor frowns.

"Your heart. It's beating twice as fast as a normal human heart would. It's beating the pace of two... instead of one. You're more like me than I first thought. Listen"

He pulls out a stethoscope and puts it in my ears and then places it over his chest. I hear a steady heart beat and then nothing as he moves it across his chest. Another steady heart beat.

"I know you have two hearts. I know all about you, remember?"

He smiles and places the stethoscope in my ears and over my chest. I gasp when I realise he's right – my heart is beating four times before pausing instead of two. It's beating for two hearts instead of one.

"How come I feel ok then? If my heart rate is that fast surely I would have died or at least be seriously ill"

"Well, you're a Time Lord so your body works differently. It acts like it has two hearts even if you didn't develop another one and Time Lord's need two hearts to survive so your body actually needs your heart rate to be faster"

I smile and so does the Doctor. "So, where do you want to go? Sister's choice"

I smile again and think. "Well, I've always wanted to go to Wales"

The Doctor smiles. He releases the handbrake and the Tardis takes off.

"Wales it is"


End file.
